What is RIDE YOUR MIND?

RIDE YOUR MIND (RYM) is the PhD Project of Jens M Stoberfrom RMIT University'sGEElab Europe. It is an artistic, hackish, neurofeedback, real-time virtual reality game or, in brief, a NeuroVR Game that forces the user’s conscious to compete with his subconscious.

The aim of RYM is to imbue the player with an awareness of his own brain as a consciously controllable tool comparable, for example, to his hand. It achieves this aim by forcing the player’s conscious acting into competition with his subconscious acting; the player receives direct neuronal feedback showing him his unconscious brain activity, eliciting a whole new sensation of self. At the same time, the virtual reality environment as a void, allows the player to interact by moving his head, which, in turn, triggers further brain activity.

The RYM concept does not ignore the fact that the game experience is a highly intimate one in which personal sensory data is temporarily stored and processed. If the user does allow the data collected to be stored or even anonymously shared, it can be interpreted by medical experts and thereby serve as a contribution to cognitive neurological research. Running a game generated by neurological data in real time requires knowledge gleaned from medical research. In other words, the game itself entails a recontextualisation of medical knowledge into a gaming and art context. RYM uses knowledge and devices from the medical world to create an artistic and experimental form of entertainment.

The NeuroVR Game RYM is generated by neurofeedback collected by an EmotivEEG Brain Computer Interface (BCI). The game environment gets responsively designed by the actual neuronal data. An Oculus Rift Head-Mounted Display (HMD) displayes the playable visualisation of the users brain. The data will be processed using Unity3D and a specially developed Neurogame Design Toolchain for Unity3D by diploma candidate Iris Birnbaum from KIT / TECO.

RIDE YOUR MIND: The Game

(Screenshot of RIDE YOUR MIND - The NeuroVR Game)

Game Features

Concept Trailer

Neurogaming & Virtual Reality Gaming ExperienceResponsive Game Play & Responsive Game EnvironmentPlayer's can Contribution to Neuroscience

Used Hardware Technology

Neurofeedback

Emotiv EEG Brain Computer Interface (BCI) to collect neuronal signals

Virtual Reality

Oculus Rift to display the responsively generated NeuroVR Game RYM

Headphones

Noise-Cancelling Headphones to avoid auditiv distraction

NeuroVR Helmet

Combination of the used hardware to a conceptual helmet prototype

Ride Your Mind is an experimental NeuroVR game. The final prototype of the concept will be a playable data visualisation of real-time brain waves. By this it might be possible to train the brain sending out conscious signals to control the game environment itself. Thereby the users awareness and perception of his own brain can get enhanced. Neuroscientific experts are not sure about the possible effect on the user's brain and what will or can happen while playing RYM. This is why these three Warning Signs are presented at this point.

The outcome of the research project RYM and the possible impact on the human cerebric is not yet foreseeable!